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Nathan Stoltzfus on Life and Times in Nazi Germany

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Nathan Stoltzfus on Life and Times in Nazi Germany Lisa Pine, ed.. Life and Times in Nazi Germany. New York, NY: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016. 328 pp. $35.95, paper, ISBN 978-1-4742-1792-7. Reviewed by Nathan Stoltzfus Published on H-German (October, 2018) Commissioned by David Harrisville (University of Wisconsin-Madison) Lisa Pine, one of the most productive histori‐ tories. Pine’s introduction rightly emphasizes the ans of everyday life in Nazi Germany, has pub‐ pressures of social conformity and the terror of lished another marker in the historiography of or‐ nonconformity when considering whether most dinary Germans. Detractors have charged this al‐ Germans freely chose Nazism or were compelled ternative approach to “big man” and structuralist by terror to accept it. Many must have found interpretations with undue celebration of “the themselves somewhere in between, given the fa‐ man on the street.” This collection of ten essays, miliar urge to make life easier and more reward‐ rich with research and observations, helps ing along with the simple lack of experience with demonstrate that history from below does not resistance or even nonconformity. Resistance is have to ignore other approaches. Especially when also tremendously difficult given our propensity it relates the everyday to political decision-mak‐ to rationalize in ways that comfort and align self- ing, it adds dimensions and not just texture. Thus, interest with the mainstream, as Victor Klemper‐ it is especially well suited to the urgent task, in er’s diary points out. By the late 1930s almost all what might be a new populist era, of confronting Germans could fnd something to support about ordinary persons with the question of how they the Nazi dictatorship so that, as Pine writes, dis‐ contribute to the development and sustenance of sent, complicity, and outright support often coex‐ autocracy, fascist or otherwise. isted. Not surprisingly, considering the general Life and Times in Nazi Germany asks how or‐ human condition, Germans “were not equal to the dinary persons perceived and acted during such situation,” as Sebastian Haffner observed. Draw‐ an extraordinary time as the Nazi period, raising ing on familiar habits, they tried “to ignore the sit‐ questions about whether they considered their uation and not allow it to disturb our fun ... to time to be extraordinary, and if so, when and why. think about unpleasant things as little as possi‐ While Hitler and his allies did not succeed in con‐ ble.”[1] structing a Volksgemeinschaft according to their The book consists of three parts: “Food and ideal, the degree to which they did gain and main‐ Health,” “Lifestyle,” and “Religion.” Nancy Reagin, tain support from the population as long as they who has written on women’s political organiza‐ were providing incentives for the majority--and at tions before 1933, offers real insights into the ev‐ a horrendous price to others--casts a probing light eryday life of “ordinary” Germans, in contrast to a on the learned habits of our species and its trajec‐ few chapters that focus more on elites. She ex‐ H-Net Reviews plores the dictatorship’s efforts to convince Ger‐ brute force. Characteristically, as well, it was the mans to embrace Nazism, using new food-pro‐ Führer who, in contrast to the cumulative radical‐ cessing and -storage technologies along with en‐ ization that he permitted in the persecution of the ticement, lack of choice, and exhortation, reach‐ Jews, intervened to reverse coercive measures ing the conclusion that Nazi efforts to reshape taken by regional domestic officials that alienated consumption and dietary habits “were largely the Volk. Hitler, to protect his image, rescinded a successful” (p. 40). Although it considered women Total War measure by the minister for the econo‐ incapable of conducting politics, the dictatorship my to ban hair permanents in 1943. He was re‐ encouraged women to feel empowered by touting sponding to complaints from women including their efforts as critical to Germany’s mission in Eva Braun, although as the war gobbled up chem‐ the big, history-making world of men, war, and icals, perms became increasingly rare and expen‐ conquest (“cooking spoons” became “weapons” sive. Guenter demonstrates that “clothes provided during the war). Reagin identifies the key role a tangible sign of inclusion in and exclusion from that looting from foreign territories played in the Volksgemeinschaft” (p. 101), as outsiders were propping up the German food economy and the forbidden to wear the dirndl (traditional Volk cos‐ paltry rations for Jewish Germans, although she tume) or the uniforms of Nazified women’s orga‐ did not fnd time or space to deal with sources on nizations, while others were marked as outsiders the privations suffered by foreign forced laborers. on their clothing. Guenter concludes that fashion Looking back from the 1950s, most Germans re‐ and fashion magazines served as a smokescreen membered the Nazi prewar years as a “good” pe‐ that, like Hitler’s prolonged refusal to conscript riod, because they themselves had jobs and their women, attempted to create the impression that own tables were sufficiently set. Pointing out that war under Nazism would not demand harsh sac‐ alcoholics were sterilized while drug addicts were rifices. rehabilitated, Jonathan Lewy’s contribution, “Vice Kirstin Semmens’s chapter on tourism is an and the Third Reich,” argues that the Nazi ap‐ excellent example of how ordinary persons can proach to addiction (with the exception of alco‐ align their own interests with those of tyranny, holism) was remarkably liberal, treating it as a just as they have learned to align them with pow‐ disease (although ending addiction was promoted er structures during a democracy, without any as a measure to stem antisocial behavior). He thought of resistance. Semmens emphasizes that mentions but does not develop the special con‐ the Nazis had a big impact on the tourism indus‐ cern the regime had in cautioning women not to try, concluding that “everyday tourism” generally smoke. Geoffrey Cocks’s study of illness in Nazi increased support for Hitler or at least minimized Germany does consider the gendered nature of overt resistance, even as it brutalized Jewish pro‐ Nazi policies, which included a focus on promot‐ fessionals, some of them colleagues or associates. ing women’s health to increase the population. Gleichschaltung (alignment or coordination) of The Volksgemeinschaft was a Nazi ideal and the the travel industry, Semmens fnds, was often due leadership made decisions in light of its goal of to voluntary changes on the local level rather persuading Germans to join in constructing it. than orders from above, as many tourist profes‐ Irene Guenther opens the book’s second sec‐ sionals traded their autonomy for career ad‐ tion with a chapter on the fraught Nazi relation‐ vances. To the extent that tourist professionals ship to women’s fashion. She shows not only the were a coherent group (and this could be investi‐ political significance of women for Nazism, but gated further), Semmens shows them accepting also the limitations the regime recognized on its capacity to get its way within the Reich by sheer 2 H-Net Reviews the convenient Nazi claim that tourism united the functioned as a mechanism for integrating the Germans and promoted patriotism. people into the national community through par‐ David Imhoof’s essay, “Sports, Politics and ticipation. Art, like fashion, was a representation Free Time,” begins with the intriguing claim that of Nazi ideology: both presented modern styles as “the history of sport illustrates that Nazi Gleich‐ non-German, influenced by Jews. schaltung (coordination) of free-time activities This book’s fnal section on religion concerns was a two-way street, a process by which average Protestants, Catholics, and Christmas. To avoid a Germans helped to create the Third Reich culture repetition of the home front unrest that Hitler as much as they had it imposed on them” (p. 161). blamed for Germany’s loss of World War I, the While the expulsion of Jews from the industry dictatorship wanted to fght war without imping‐ and erasure of Jewish sites on tourist maps oc‐ ing on everyday norms and consumption, al‐ curred with brutal rapidity, Gleichschaltung was a though this became increasingly difficult with long process, as traced in Imhoof’s case study of each year of war. Conversely, churches’ practice Göttingen, having begun on the initiative of local of their religious customs generally became easier elites even before Hitler came to power and con‐ during the war, following Hitler’s resolve, deliv‐ tinuing into the mid-1930s. While masking “Göt‐ ered as an order during the frst days of the war, tingen interests,” townspeople playing, watching, that all unnecessary provocations of the churches or writing about sports “helped turn Göttingen must cease. into a Nazi town,” Imhoff argues (p. 179). Nazi Opening the book’s fnal section, on religion, policing and taxation of organizations made use Christopher Probst rightly contrasts Protestant ob‐ of preexisting notions of community associated jections to Nazi infringement of traditional reli‐ with sports in ways that attracted Germans to the gious practices with its occasional objections to state and even prepared them for war. the persecution of the Jews. He points out that the Joan Clinefelter’s chapter on art and the Confessing Church did not support Hitler’s dream Volksgemeinschaft argues boldly that “culture of establishing a Reich Church with a Reich bish‐ generally and the visual arts specifically formed op above all other German Protestant bishops, an‐ the core of the Volksgemeinschaft” (p. 189). Before swering to the Führer. Because Party officials as well as during the war, the arts “provided vis‐ could neither turn opinion against these bishops ual proof of the very essence of German identity nor agree on how to control them, they referred and the new society that was being created” (p.
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